Page:Libussa, Duchess of Bohemia; also, The Man Without a Name.djvu/9

Rh the road-side cottage or in the castellated mansion, will abandon its dearest plaything—the hoop, the top, the wooden horse, the doll, or the drum—to come and listen to the story of Jack the Giant-killer or Mother Hubbard. The soldier sitting near the watch fire will forget the fatigues of the march, to listen, on the shores of the Ebro, to the Tales of the Alhambra, or, on the borders of the Ganges, to the genial tales of the Arabian Nights. The sailor will give his grog to listen to the elder and more weather-beaten tar relating his meeting with the phantom ship or the ghost of the Red Rover. But not those primitive minds alone are fond of the wonderful and preternatural; for many a debating senator, and grey-headed savant, will peruse with pleasure works upon animal magnetism and other wonderful inventions of the age; and Morrison’s pills, Holloway’s ointments, and Major Beniowski’s phrenotypics, will always find purchasers. Even the sober Times, knowing the taste of the public, occasionally indulges in the wonderful, and devotes a few columns to the last travels of the sea-serpent. The propensity for the supernatural is deeply